


Another Decision to Make

by lady_wordsmith



Series: Memories (Bucky/Reader) [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Dramatic Irony, F/M, Memory Loss, Past Relationship(s), Protective Bucky Barnes, Reader-Insert, Romance, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Sam Wilson is a Saint, Stuff might start making sense soon, The Readers know more than the Characters do, at least a little more, at least hints of it, even if you guys don't know it yet, look at all these chekov's guns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-12
Updated: 2016-03-12
Packaged: 2018-05-26 06:55:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6228325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_wordsmith/pseuds/lady_wordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky thinks about what were to happen if he found you alive.<br/>The fact that Sam is better at research and has found some necessary leads does not make this decision easier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Decision to Make

**Author's Note:**

> The date mentioned in this fic (of Steve being found on the ice) I took from the MCU wiki.

 

> _“Horseshoe theory.” You say out loud one day, sometime in the beginning of your time on the run. Bucky looks over at you like you’re crazy. The two of you have barely said anything to each other since he pulled you out of that cell._
> 
> _“Horseshoe theory. Everyone acts like politics is a straight line, right? You have your people all the way over on the left or the right of the line with who knows how many points in between. It’s bullshit, though. Political ideology is more like a horseshoe. You have your far left and your far right, but in a horseshoe shape they’re closer to each other than they are to the center, see. Politics is like that. The far left and the far right are closer and more similar to each other than either is to the center. You could apply the concept to other stuff too, I guess. Extremists on either side of good or evil, maybe.” You finally pause, giving him a brief look before returning to staring at the ceiling._
> 
> _Bucky just stares at you._
> 
> _“What?” he asks, and you turn your head with a slight smirk._
> 
> _“I’m missing my finals, or I’ve already missed them. One of my electives was a poli sci class. So instead of taking my finals, I’m reciting the information out loud because if I don’t, I’ll go insane from all this quiet.”_

Bucky learned after that that even the occasional one or two word answer was enough to placate you, at least for a bit. Somewhere along the line, full conversations developed, and then… Well.

It was quiet now, at night, and quiet always made him think of you eventually, about the bits of information you would tell him when you thought it was too quiet. Usually things you had learned or knew about, but sometimes about yourself.

You had been in college, though he couldn’t remember what you studied or how far into your studies you were, or even where you studied. It hadn’t been political science; as you told him, that was only an elective, and it bored you. He only remembered you joking the degree was worthless, though, that you would have to go to grad school for it to amount to anything.

He wondered, idly, if you would have finished your degree if you had escaped. You tried explaining student loans once, but he just looked at you blankly until you finally shrugged and told him that “Yeah, I’m like that when I get the notices, too.”

You had had a life out there somewhere. If Sam was right, you might have returned to it.

Bucky shook his head. No, there was no real going back when things like this happened to you. But you might have gone to the places you had known, tried to settle, tried to forget.

He wondered if you still loved him. Once he had begun to remember you, _really_ remember you, it was as though his feelings had never disappeared. They had only been hidden somewhere, making themselves known when it was safe to do so. Just as strong, just as potent.

If you were alive, if you had moved on. It wasn’t like the death thoughts, the ones that Bucky couldn’t even finish in his head. If you were alive and had moved on, he would leave you alone. It had been long enough, after all. Five years, six? Bucky tried counting in his head. Steve had been found in the ice on April 14th, 2012; at least a year after HYDRA had recaptured Bucky. It was 2016 now.  Yes, five or six years sounded right. You could be married with babies now for all he knew, and he couldn’t take you away from that. That meant you were safe.

It hurt to imagine you with another man, giving birth to another man’s children. But if you were happy, Bucky knew he would learn to be happy for you. Or perhaps he would simply not make his presence known to you at all, let you think that he had disappeared into the ether somewhere. You had to know about D.C., after all. You had to know that it was him doing those things.

He wondered if you had felt a pang of something then, an ache in your heart, even if you had a new life and new loves that didn’t include him. He wondered if you had felt a momentary sense of urgency, to rush to D.C. and talk him down, even if there was no happy ending in the cards for the two of you. After all, he had felt a sense of needing to find you, needing to know you were safe, once he remembered you. Had you felt that, at all?

Bucky felt an aching lump in his throat. He didn’t know that being almost certain you were alive would hurt this much. But no matter what, he had to be certain that you were alive and safe. Nothing else, not even his feelings for you, mattered more than that.

* * *

Sam was better at research. Of course he was. If Bucky were in a better humor, he would have made cracks about young whippersnappers and being too old and _get off my fucking lawn_.

Sam didn’t find you, at least not quite, not at first. That would have been too easy. But some calls about his counselee and a few internet searches had unearthed the names of two men, cousins. Different last names, ones that Bucky couldn’t remember and didn’t bother to. One of the men’s first names was Lane. They couldn’t find the other one’s full name, but his first name started with an H. Their mothers were sisters, and their brother was your father. Lane’s middle name was his mother’s maiden name and your last name, which was why Sam had remembered your name on that list.

Lane was easier to find. Former military, Navy SEAL, by all accounts a bad boy made good. He had gone to school while in the Navy, computer science. Reenlisted once, but he had gotten out about a year or so before you had been captured by HYDRA. He lived in Boston now, taking classes for a graduate degree.

H. hadn’t been on the list Sam remembered, and information was scarce. No military record, and a heavily redacted college transcript suggesting a chemistry major. Might as well have been a ghost. He apparently had a wife, though, if social media was to be believed. She went by the name Lila (her middle name, apparently), she had his last name, and she was a graduate student in chemistry like her husband. She had pictures of herself on social media, but always with her husband’s cousins or siblings, never with him. Other than that, she was a ghost, too.

But Lila’s page had unearthed two important things. The first was a photo of her and Lane on either side of you, holding you up as you were obviously inebriated. All three of you were in formalwear, and the photo caption declared it to be your final sorority formal. The three of you were all smiling, though your smile had been wider and your gaze unfocused. The photo’s comments were full of jokes about how no one was surprised, that your being in a sorority must have required a steady stream of liquor to deal with it.

The second thing Lila’s profile page contained was another photo, this one of a missing person’s poster. It was you, your vital statistics and description. The poster said that you were a psychology student at Boston University, and you were last seen getting off public transportation and walking to your off-campus apartment. No one had thought to call the police for a week or so, when it was discovered you had missed an important final exam.

That pissed Bucky off. A week? A fucking _week_? When you had been together, he felt anxious and panicky if you were out of his sight for more than four _hours_. Of course, he’d had his reasons for that, but still. A fucking _week_.

He was definitely going to knock your family around some if he ever met them. Not kill them, because he had a thing about wanting to avoid upsetting you, and killing your family would definitely upset you. Still, he can’t imagine you’d object to some missing teeth and a broken bone here and there. If he was feeling particularly macabre, he’d present you with a necklace made of their broken teeth. It would probably make you laugh a little, at least, but you scolded him because “That is a horrible first impression to make on my family, James Buchanan Barnes!”

The missing person’s poster contained three photos. The first was a front-facing photo that was obviously a student ID photo, a bland background and a neutral expression. The second photo was apparently a still of you getting off public transport the day you went missing, taken from the side and grainy. But the third photo was the one Bucky kept looking at. It was of you, in soft lighting from the side. In this photo, though, your head was turned to look at the camera, your body turned just slightly. He couldn’t read your expression, half-lidded eyes and your lips slightly upturned. It looked like you had some secret, and you were daring the camera to find it out.

Sam tried doing more research on your missing person’s case, but all available sources said that you had been found alive and that further details were unavailable. Sam had smiled at that, and Steve, too.

“She’s been found, Bucky, alive.” Steve had told him, his voice suggesting finality.

But Bucky shook his head.

“That doesn’t mean anything. She was found _years_ ago. A lot… A lot could have happened since then. I need to know that she’s safe _now_.” He told them, his mind racing.

You could have been captured again, so cleverly that no one even had any cause for alarm and knew that you were actually missing. You could have been killed in any number of ways that HYDRA could have covered to make it look like anything else: an accident, a random crime.

He had to see you, with his own eyes. That was the only way to be sure. He didn’t even have to speak to you ( _because you could be married and babies and a new life forgetting all the pain and moving on and happy without him but that was okay because all he needed was you happy and alive and safe and)_ , but he needed to look and to know with certainty.

“Says here…” Sam said, looking at a news article from when you had been found. “That she’s a native of Boston; she wasn’t just attending college there. Maybe she stuck around.”

Boston? The entire time? Had that been it? You lived in Boston? Was that the connection between you and Boston he tried so hard to remember? He had been close to you the whole time?

Bucky almost cursed himself. You had been close the entire time. But he knew that if he hadn’t left, he would never have been able to know that. He had needed Steve and Sam’s help. It made him feel helpless and small, but he knew that he would have felt worse staying in Boston with no answers.

“I have to go back to Boston.” He told them. “I have to know that she’s still alive, that she’s okay. HYDRA could have gotten her, in the meantime.”

“You don’t even know why HYDRA wanted her in the first place. You could be putting yourself in danger.” Steve tried to argue.

Sam remained silent, but he had a look on his face like he was thinking. The same look he had when Bucky had told Sam and Steve the story of you. Bucky waited, knowing Sam was probably forming thoughts in his head that might help.

“What if it wasn’t her they were after?” Sam finally asked, which made both Bucky and Steve look at him incredulously.

“That makes no sense, she was captured by HYDRA,” Steve said at the same time as Bucky told Sam, “I pulled her out of that cell myself, Wilson, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Hear me out.” Sam reassured them. “Okay, so. Ordinary college kid. Psychology. Certainly not high on the HYDRA target list. And there was no one like that on that list I remember, no psych nerds. But it was full of a lot of different science and electronics and whatever-the-hell majors, some of whom were former or current military.”

Sam paused and looked at both Steve and Bucky, waiting to see if they made the connection. When they both stared blankly back, he sighed and muttered something about having to do all the work before continuing.

“She has family on that list. A cousin who was in the military and a computer science major. Another cousin and someone who might be his wife weren’t on the list, but are chemistry majors. That list is a group of people who are probably fighting against HYDRA. What if HYDRA knew about the list and made a mistake?”

“What?” Bucky said, but Steve looked thoughtful.

“Maybe they mistook her for the one’s cousin’s wife.” Steve mused. “Abducted her to use her as leverage against the group, maybe make use of her skills in the meantime. By the time they discover a mistake’s been made-“

“A missing person’s report gets filed and they realize they need to cover their tracks. Unfortunately for them, a certain asset-“and both Steve and Sam look over Bucky almost in unison before Sam continued. “Has started to rebel and before they know it, makes his way out of their control with their little mishap in tow.”

Bucky mulled the scenario over in his head. It made sense.

“But what about after? They chased after us for close to a year.” He reminded them.

Silence from all three of them as they tried to formulate any sort of guess.

“We need to find her.” Bucky insisted. “You promised you’d help me see this to the end.”

“I know, Buck, but what if she’s safe now? Finding her would put her in danger from HYDRA again.” Steve reminded him.

Bucky shook his head. He’d protect you, he know he could. A year together and you had made it out alive, after all. He could protect you again.

He’d always protect you if he had to.

**Author's Note:**

> And yes, you guys do know more than they do right now, the identity of H., for example.  
> Mwahaha.


End file.
